Boarded-up windows did not yield to her strong fingers nor tottering verandas offer a cordial invitation to rest. There was a chill in the October air, and Thurley gladly scampered up and down one pair of steps after another, peering into one dark room and then another, wandering through weed-choked gardens and pausing under apple trees to make up stories to suit each house. In her imaginative way she peopled the places with golden-haired ladies and blue-eyed babies, handsome gentlemen driving smart horses, and then every one sitting down to eat tons of good things served by colored waiters. In her motley travels through the country Thurley had obtained glimpses of such elegance, if not actually experiencing it.
The gang was forgotten, so was Philena, and the fact that she had promised to play missionary at five o’clock. She forgot, as well, that her father was out of “comfort,” and would complain all night unless he was supplied, and that she had been worrying all morning as to what they should do when snow carpeted the meadow and the box-car wagon proved inefficient against wind and frost!
Thurley was living in an enchanted land all her own—these houses were hers! One by one she made the imaginary tenants leave and go elsewhere, while she became an imprisoned princess doomed to spend a year in each house before she could be free of the ten-headed dragon! She ran along the shore in delight as she contemplated her prisons. Each day she would come and camp on the outside of the house in which she was imprisoned, playing princess in spangled crimson and lace and pretending the ten-headed dragon lived in a cave in the bottom of the lake and could poke one of his heads up at unexpected moments to see if his prisoner was behaving as he desired!
Then she spied a light burning in the last of the houses. She wondered if she had imagined “until it was better than real,” a favorite experience. But as she came closer, she saw several lights and unmistakable signs of long-accustomed habitation.
“This was the loveliest house of all,” she thought mournfully, “and it had to be lived in!”
Yet this house betrayed signs of decay; the shutters on one side were fastened tightly and bricks dislodged from an unused chimney. Thurley could not refrain from taking an extra peek. She made her way to the side and crept up the steps gently to push at the carved old door with its tarnished knocker.
It opened! Taut with excitement and fearless, Thurley felt that she ought to repeat a charm to save herself from being changed into a mouse or a rubber plant or some such helpless creation.
Inside the house burned a jewelled lamp; bulky objects were shrouded with covers. The boards creaked under her sturdy feet as she tiptoed about. A musty smell pervaded everything, and there were several doors, one of which she was about to open when a voice from the stairway made her halt.
“Ali Baba, it isn’t four o’clock. How dare you come inside?” said the voice. Looking up, Thurley saw a bent-over lady in an old black dress, her yellowed fingers shining with rings as they clutched the banister. Her thin, pointed face with its restless eyes was looking over towards the opened door; she had not spied Thurley.
“Close that door, you stupid Ali Baba; never dare to come here again—where are you? Why”—this with a hysterical scream—“it’s a child—a child—” and the little old lady began running down the stairs, beating her hands in the air, as if trying to strike at Thurley.